Unit And Building Names

[Davarish]

Hello and congratulations.

After i played the Hellenes (Hellines) i noticed that some buildings and units are not named correctly. For example:

Oikon should be Oikos

Sitobolion should be Sitovoleion

Strategion should be Stratigeion

Limenos should be Limenas or Limin

Pule should be Puli or Thura

and for some units is not clear whether you want to use modern Greek or ancient Greek like for example:

Plio which is modern greek word for ship so it should change to the ancient greek word naus. The same goes for the unit Emporiko plio

Also Trieres should be Triiris

Some other units here and there are also a bit confusing like the Spartiate which should be either Spartan in English or Spartiatis in Greek.

Anyway, great game and hope you keep your efforts up. Great graphics especially the sea reflections and all...and great music very atmospheric great great

[Mythos_Ruler]

Great suggestions and fixes, Davarish! I will implement most of them now. I am not an expert in the Greek language and mostly had to rely on sporadic advice from a few friends who are Hellenophones and Internet research. What would "Fishing Ship" be? Something Naus?

[Davarish]

Great suggestions and fixes, Davarish! I will implement most of them now. I am not an expert in the Greek language and mostly had to rely on sporadic advice from a few friends who are Hellenophones and Internet research. What would "Fishing Ship" be? Something Naus?

The unit Fishing Ship would be Alieutikin Naus

[SMST]

May I interrupt? Davarish, you are wronging correct things (Oikon, Sitobolion etc.) The choices you make seem to be modern Greek to me, but most of the stuff you wanted to correct IS correct in Ancient Greek.

"Ploion" may be a good word for ship, like "naus", which is the only thing you are correct about.

[Davarish]

May I interrupt? Davarish, you are wronging correct things (Oikon, Sitobolion etc.) The choices you make seem to be modern Greek to me, but most of the stuff you wanted to correct IS correct in Ancient Greek.

"Ploion" may be a good word for ship, like "naus", which is the only thing you are correct about.

Let me explain

1.) In Greek the words that define space like buildings or rooms use an "ei" when they end as "eion". In game there is a building named "Anakleion" that shows that. That is why the correct is for the Strategion to become Stratigeion and for the Sitobolion to become Sitovoleion.

2.) The word Oikon is also incorrect cause it is only used when we say kat-oikon which means inside the house. The correct word is Oikos that means House.

http://el.wiktionary...%BA%CE%BF%CF%82

3.) The word Limenos is wrong. The modern Greek word is Limenas and the Ancient Greek word is Limin.

http://el.wiktionary...%BC%CE%AE%CE%BD

4.) The word Pule is almost the modern Greek word Pyli that means gate. The ancient Greek word for gate is Thyra. From the word Thyra comes the word thyreus that means escutcheon

http://el.wiktionary...%8D%CF%81%CE%B1

5.) Trieres is also wrong. The correct in ancient Greek is Triiris and the same it is when you refer to many ships of that kind. One Triiris, two hundred Triiris.

http://el.wiktionary...%81%CE%B7%CF%82

[SMST]

Okay, you are right about Oikos, sorry about that.

However, most of your corrections use Modern Greek spelling, like "triiris", which ist "trieres" in Ancient Greek. "Limin" would be "limen". "Sitovolion" is "Sitobolion". (the b-Sound changed into a v-sound during history) I'm not sure about "strategion/strategeion" alltogether, this seems to be something made up. I would suggest "stratopedion", meaning "army camp", though it refers more to a temporary camp than to a stationary.

"tyra" means "door" (in fact, the German word "Tür" is derived from that, I think), and "pyle" (as it should be written, not "pule") means gate. Maybe "tyra" can mean gate, but "pyle" would be more common. (Theromopylai!)

Sorry I was harsh, earlier.

Edited April 9, 2011 by SMST

[Davarish]

Well it is ok to be harsh as long as you are constructive. Let me give further explanations.

1.) You say that triiris should stay trieres. The greek word is Τριήρης. Both ι and η greek charachters are spelled as i in english so i spelled it as Triiris. It may sound better as Trieres so lets leave it this way you are correct.

2.) The v and b that you say changed during history is wrong assumption. Sitovoleion comes from the word sitos (σίτος) and the verb vallo (βάλλω). Σίτος means wheat. βάλλω means stick or put or set. You'll see that if you do the google translation. So it is v and not b. There is no ballo. So we have the word Σιτοβολλείον that in english is spelled Sitovoleion right?

3.) Stratigeion (not Strategeion) is the word Στρατηγείον and is something different from stratopedo (Στρατόπεδο) which is the correct word instead of the stratopedion that you used so..whatever. Stratopedo is the army camp. Stratigeion is the "General's place" if you know what i mean...

4.) Thyra...Pyle whatever...i am fine with both. Both are correct as far as i am concerned

5.) Limin is not limen cause the ancient Greek word is λιμήν so...it is Limin. It should be λιμέν to spell it limen...

I hope using Greek doesn't make my points more confusing. I do it for better understanding...

Edited April 9, 2011 by Davarish

[SMST]

I am perfectly able to read Greek characters, so that's no problem for me.

η is a character that was used in Ancient Greek to describe a long "e"-vowel (ε would be a short e-vowel). It has changed to a long "i"-vowel (which is very similar phonetically) in Modern Greek. So η should be transscribed to "e" or maybe "ê" for the purpose of this game.

This explains the confusion about Trieres - Triiris, Strategion - Stratigion, Limen - Limin. As I said, it should be the "e"-sound in this game.

βάλλω/βάλλειν can mean many things - to put, to set, but also to throw, from which meaning the English word "ball" derives, which shows that β was originally indeed "b" and not "v".

[Davarish]

Ok but since Sitovoleion is the building where you put or set the wheat and not throw it and since we are talking about ancient Greek (βάλλω "v") and not modern English (ball "b") shouldn't we name it Sitovoleion instead of Sitobolion?

As for the "e" you may be right there cause it sounds better like that.

Nothing more. Thanks for the constructive conversation. I hope the developers can figure out and filter out what we discussed and give the correct names to everything that needs so

Edited April 9, 2011 by Davarish

[SMST]

Ok but since Sitovoleion is the building where you put or set the wheat and not throw it and since we are talking about ancient Greek (βάλλω "v") and not modern English (ball "b") shouldn't we name it Sitovoleion instead of Sitobolion?

That's exactly the point. The word "ball" derived from βάλλω at a earlier time, showing that the word had a "b"-sound in ancient days, instead of the "v"-sound it has today.

The exact maning of βάλλω (which I spell as ballô) is not important here, I just wanted to show you the ethymological evolution, which can allow us to link to the phonetic evolution of a character.

EDIT:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta

Oh, I agree about "Sitoboleion", though "i"- and "ei"-syllabes are exchangable most of the time.

Edited April 9, 2011 by SMST

[Davarish]

So to sum up

Oikon becomes Oikos

Sitobolion becomes Sitoboleion

Strategion becomes Strategeion

Limenos becomes Limen

Pule becomes Pyle

Plio becomes Naus

Everything else stays as it is. Do you agree?

[SMST]

Sounds fine.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Intriguing discussion. I'd say it was one of the most thoughtful discussions on the subject in a long time. Thanks guys! I'll be sure to rename these items based upon the agreed terms.

[Erutuon]

Yay! I wanted to start a topic like this, since I noticed some of the same names that need to be corrected. I studied Ancient Greek and Latin in high school and have read a lot about Greek and Latin pronunciation and word-formation in order to improve the articles on Wikipedia.

You guys got several of the things I noticed, but I have a few more suggestions, with the help of the nifty online lexicon (see the links).

Naus is an Ancient Greek word, as you say, but it was apparently not used for fishing ships, more for warships and sometimes merchant ships, and it wasn't common in the Hellenistic era. Ploion refers to any floating vessel, but most commonly to merchant or fishing vessels, and ploion halieutikon is the specific phrase for "fishing boat".

Stavlos would be spelled staulos in Ancient Greek (alpha-upsilon was pronounced au in Ancient Greek, and av/af in Modern Greek), but it isn't an Ancient Greek word; it's only Modern Greek. I'm not sure what the correct Ancient Greek word is, though.

Pentekontor should be pentekonteros or pentekontoros: it needs the Greek -os ending.

Emporiko naus isn't the Ancient Greek phrase for merchant ship. I don't know what the correct word is, though. Perhaps ploion phortegikon? Phortegikon is an adjective from phortegos, merchant (from phortos "cargo" and the root ag- or eg- "bring"), so it literally means "ship of a cargo-hauler". Or maybe phortis, which is an adjective meaning "for cargo", but was used as a noun "cargo ship".

Legionnaire should be legionarius. Legionnaire is the French form coming from Latin legionarius, "belonging to a legion".

So, those are some suggestions. I think there are more. If I remember them, I'll maybe post them.

[Teronious]

Whilst I appreciate the use of the correct naming even if it be ancient or modern Greek, the problem being, assume one wants to move forward a group of archers, am expected to know the term for archers. Is this going to be the same for Greek, Roman or Babylonioan etc. Any time-line extension of the game which I feel sure will come needs to be flexible. If the current name is held as part of a unit's data then one would need to modify the data which may not be readilty available. If the unit is given a unique number then this value can be used to look up a dictionary and the unit's name extracted from it. This would have the added advantage that any literal used within the game can also be part of the dictionary and can be referenced by number. Assume therefore that a somebody likes an archer to be called an archer. At game time the preference for say Medieval naming convention can be chosen instead of Greek. This also allows the literals to be translated into any other language ie French, german giving the game a truely international status. The langauge of choice can be made at the start of the game and set up in preferences the lierals can be extracted from the dictionary to give a mini dictionary which is used whilst the game is running. This technique of a large dictionary containing all literals, extracted to a mini dictionary at load time, and accessed by the programs during run time worked well within a global system written and designed by me for a large well known multi-national toy company. This is just a thought but as people are talking about rewriting code may be this idea could be researched.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Units are also called by their generic names in the tooltips.

[SMST]

I think there could maybe a special game mode in the options that "simplifies" the game. (similar to friend and foe colors) In which the units could be given a generic name substitute instead of the ethnic name. A Peltastes Thrakikos would be a "Thracian Peltast" or a Gaesata would be a "Celtic Spearman". This might be something to consider, as I personally see the use of ethnic names in general as a two-edged sword: whilst it gives truly historical flavor to the game, it may also confuse people. (I, for myself, am fairly familiar with anything Latin, Greek or Spanish, but I frown upon the names of the Persian or Carthaginian units.)

[Mythos_Ruler]

The benefit of the ethnic names is that it simplifies localization slightly. But we'll see how it shakes out.

[Mythos_Ruler]

We've decided to go with a new <GenericName> and <SpecificName> paradigm.

So, for instance:

* Generic Name: Macedonian Pikeman.

* Specific Name: Pezhetairos.

* Generic Name: Cretan Archer.

* Specific Name: Toxotes Kretikoi.

Those come from here, my Macedonian faction profile:

http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=13560

It would be nice to get constructive criticism of the Greek words contained therein.

[SMST]

It's "Toxotes Kretikos", if you are referring to a single archer. Same goes for any "-oi"-ending, which is the masculine plural, while "-os" is the masculine singular.

And it's nice to have that option. As I see it from the current SVN-Version, the feature works out nicely for me.

Edited July 10, 2011 by SMST

[Pedro Falcão]

Hi, people. Well, i was looking the pics on the facebook page and i saw the model of the Iberian merchant named as 'Barco'. It is true that 'Barco' is 'Ship' in Spanish and in Portuguese (my native language), and Portugal and Spain ARE on Iberian Peninsula, but i think we need to look out because the Iberians were the people who lived on the region before the Romans conquered them all and they do not speak Portuguese nor Spanish, they spoke a language close to celtic and, just for in case of you don't know, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romeno are languages directly descendants from Latin, which was Roma's language, not Iberians'.

Hope i helped a bit. And if you all wanna keep the name in Spanish or Portuguese, i can help, i am not the best at Spanish, but it is very similar to Portuguese.

[feneur]

The problem is that we haven't been able to find enough info on the Iberian language, thus the choice was hard, but in the end we decided to use Spanish as that at least was related to the Iberian peninsula.

[SMST]

What about Basque? Even though according to Wikipedia it is only remotely related to the Ancient Iberian Language (if at all), it is a non-Indoeuropean language that was spoken on the Iberian peninsula. (and it still is spoken in some parts of Northern Spain and Southern France) It dates back to classical times (again according to Wikipedia, there are Roman-time inscriptions with Basque words) and it remains spoken today, so it should not be too difficult getting names for units and buildings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_language

[Mythos_Ruler]

I'd be tempted to use the Roman words for the units and such, where we have references, because they are so well known, e.g. "Devotio" and "Caetrati." Or perhaps the Romanized names could be the <GenericName> of those units.

[Pedro Falcão]

I've read the portuguese page of wikipedia of the Iberian people and it says the Iberian people are considered without history because there aren't any records of "written culture" before the romans. But still, it says that according to roman records, the languages spoken by the Iberians were very close to celtic, very easy for them to understand each other. It says also the region was composed of many tribes speaking very similar languages, so many iberians easily learned each other language. By a consense, "Iberian language" is that of the lusitans, those tribes living in the region we call, nowadays, by Portugal. It is considered so because their language was the most common 'celtoic' language and not celtic-variated, like the thracians'.